Chapter Three
April made her way back to the facility. It was a huge skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan. She ran to an unsuspicious backdoor and typed in a code. The door accepted her entry and she walked inside the sleek building. She was surrounded by black marble walls as she came to the elevator bank. Again she entered her code and the elevator began going down into the basement area. The elevator came to a stop and she entered a stainless steel room filled with computers, large wall monitors and people everywhere with a different tasks at hand. She made her way through the chaos, skipped up the miniature staircase into an office.
"You've had a late night." An older gentleman with salt and pepper hair spoke to her from behind the desk.
"I was at the docks in Brooklyn scoping out any Foot Clan activity." April replied as she propped herself on the corner of the desk.
"Is that what you call what you were doing?" He smirked and he played a video from the dock camera of April in Raph's arms.
April sighed and silently scolded herself, "I didn't know he was going to be there."
"So, you decided to make out with him out of surprise?" He asked sarcastically, "You requested that your friends be kept off our radar and I have no problem complying with your request, April, but you have to do your part to keep them off our radar."
"Believe it or not, that's what I was trying to explain, but… But the conversation took a very different turn." She fiddled with her zipper on the sleeve of her jumpsuit, "This is very difficult for me to stay away from him. I still love them and I'm still in love with him. I'm handling it the best I can, I swear I am. It had just been so long since I had seen him face to face and I let myself get swept up in it."
The man sighed and a look of sympathy came to his tired eyes, "I know it's hard for you, April. I have been in your shoes, but you have a mission that you don't want them involved in due to possible exposure. You have to make your choice and stick with it. However, judging by this," He played the kiss on the screen, "This guy would follow you anywhere."
April left the man's office and made her way to her room. There was a knock on her door, "Come in."
The door cracked open and it was Vern, "O'Neil, you okay. You were gone for a really long time."
She nodded, "I'm fine, Vern. I was at the docks patrolling and Raph showed up."
Vern's eyes popped open, "Oh, shit. How was it?" He came in and closed the door.
She shook her head, "Hard, Vern. It was so much harder than I thought." She unzipped the top of jumpsuit and revealed a black tank top and scars all over her shoulders and chest. She sat on the edge of her bed and began slipping her boots off, "I thought if I kept the mission in the front of my mind and the need to keep them protected and at a distance, I'd be fine. But it didn't work that way at all. It's killing me, just like it's killing him."
"He would come here and do this with you." Vern stated without a doubt.
"What kind of life is this? Besides what would they do to the turtles after they didn't need them anymore? Put them in a lab and cut on them. They would become science experiments all over again."
Vern shrugged, "I don't know what will happen. But you can't live your life half in and half out. Either make the choice to be with him again or be here. You have to give him that courtesy, Ape."
"You're right, Vern. I just at to make a decision and let it go."
"I'll let you get some sleep and we'll talk tomorrow. Night, kid."
"Good night, Vern."
Casey stumbled his way through the door of his apartment. He had the late shift at the ice rink after a hockey game. He tossed his gear to the side on top of some mail, old clothes, and his vigilante gear. He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and began to guzzle it when he noticed his fire escape window was cracked.
Casey set his beer down and grabbed his cricket bat, "Guys? Raph? Mikey?" He stepped into the living room and his table side lamp flicked to life, "Oh, my God. April?"
"How ya been, Casey?" She smiled from the chair.
Casey dropped his bat on the floor and rushed to her. April stood up just in time for him to wrap his arms around her. She hugged him back tightly, "Jesus, April. Raph said he saw you, but I couldn't believe after all this time…"
"That I was still alive." She finished for him.
Casey nodded in shame, "Yeah, it was just so crazy. I mean a year and a half. Sit down, talk, what's going on? Are you okay?" He sat on the couch diagonal from April.
It didn't take but one smile from Casey and the tears started to fall, "I don't know what to do, Casey."
Casey put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her in for another hug, "Talk to me. Tell what's going on? Where have you been?"
"I saw Raph again last night and I tried to explain to him that he had to stay away, but it's so hard because I can't tell him everything without implicating their safety or the secrecy." Her voice cracked as she tried to explain herself.
"April, he's spent every second looking for you, maybe answers about what happened to you would give him some peace until you can come home again." He suggested.
April shook her head, "No, Casey. No one needs to hear about what happened when they found me. Raph couldn't handle it."
"Listen, April, I know he appears to be a mess and on some level he totally is, but Raph is tougher than you're giving him credit for when it comes to you. Not knowing is what's killing him." He explained just as he always did when it came to Raph.
"Still best friends, huh?" She cracked a small smile.
"It's been tough, but yeah. I've tried to be there for him every way I can." He shook his head, "I will say though, there were some nights he was so dark and so far gone, I didn't know if he'd come back from the place."
"And that's exactly why I don't think he should know everything, Case."
"You're not getting it. He was so broken because he didn't know if you were still alive for him to find. That's what made him so crazed for so long. He knows you're alive and he is becoming that same grumpy, but happy Raph because of that. He deserves your trust in telling him the truth and you deserve to know that you have someone who can handle it and he won't go running."
April chuckled a little, "I swear, it still amazes me that such wisdom comes from you. I have missed this stuff so much. I miss being with you guys and I miss having the feeling of family."
"You can have it back, April. Just make it so."
She nodded in understanding, "Ok, I need to trust you with something very important, Jones. "
"Anything, O'Neil." She dug her fingers into her pocket and pulled out a thumb drive and handed it to Casey, "What's this?"
"Guard it with your life. This is how I was saved. Everything that had been done to me was documented, every broken bone, every scar, and how they managed to keep me alive. This will tell Raph everything he wants to know about what the Foot did to me and how I'm able to sit here talking to you now. This is the truth he's looking for." She said.
"Who saved you?"
April shook her head, "I can't tell you that yet. First, I need to know if he can deal with what this will tell him. I've cut any names, except for mine out of the recording. Just tell him this is the first step. Will you please take this to him and tell him I will be in touch soon?"
"Of course, I will." He promised.
April got up to head out, "And listen, if you guys see it, that's fine, but I don't ever want anything from that recording brought up, ever. This is for Raph and his questions, okay?"
"You got it, April."
Raph was laying in his bed, rolling a toothpick around in his mouth when there was a knock at his door, "Come in."
"What's goin' on, man?" Casey greeted as he walked in.
"Nothin', just resting for a while. Now that April is back around, I'm tryin' to catch up on my sleep. What's up?" Raph asked.
"Well, that's why I'm here." Casey blurted out, "When I got home, April was in my apartment."
Raph eyed Casey, "What?"
Casey opened his hand to Raph, "She wanted me to give you this."
"What's on it?" He questioned accepting the flash drive.
"She said it's the truth you need to hear about what has been done to her and she also said she'll be in touch soon." Casey explained.
Raph went to Donnie's lab and luckily it was vacant. He sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. He wasn't tech savvy like Donnie, but he knew enough to get on the internet and work a flash drive. He inserted the shiny rectangle in the computer and clicked play on the only file on the drive. He gritted his teeth and got ready for anything.
The video was shot from a camera attached to a head piece. It opened to April's gashed up face. You couldn't even tell she was breathing it was so shallow. Raph kept his composure. Her body was hooked up to a monitor for her vitals and her heart rate was low. Her eyes were blackened from being knocked around, there was a nasty cut on her upper lip, and her nose looked crooked like it was broken.
"Subject's name April O'Neil," the man began, "found at the Brooklyn docks nearly dead. We are going to attempt to keep her alive, but it doesn't look very promising. She is badly beaten. X-rays show many improperly healed fractures that I would say have been occurring over the last several months, however nobody know with complete certainty how long she has been missing. She has a broken nose, broken fingers, several broken ribs, and severe trauma to the head and vaginal area. The severities of the breaks show that they were not done by just hands, but foreign objects as well." The man pulled down the sheet to reveal her arms and most of her chest, "There are hundreds of tiny cut marks in the skin and in much larger healed over scars in other areas. This was used in ancient times in other countries to slowly kill the victim, help draw out the pain by avoiding major arteries and keeping the victim from bleeding out."
A moment later the camera is on a table and the same man with salt and pepper hair is in front of the camera. He sighs as if he has lost hope and massages the bridge of his nose before continuing, "I don't know if I'll be able to save her. This substance has never been used on a human before… But I simply don't think there is another way." He hooked April's IV up to another tube and sped up the drip of the substance, "This mutagen maybe our only hope in keeping Miss O'Neil alive and healing her body back to some kind of normalcy. Now we wait."
The video goes black momentarily and comes back on to an awake April, and same man is with her, "Okay, April, you have been here for five days now. Can you tell me how you're feeling?"
"Um, I'm a little disoriented, but I'm not in as much pain." She replied with a very weak voice.
"Well, we still have you on some pain meds. Can you tell me your name and birthday?" He asked further.
"April O'Neil and I was born June 9, 1987." She answered correctly, "Do you know where he is?"
"Know who, April? Who do you want to see?"
"I want to see Raph. Do you know him?"
"No, I don't. Can you tell me about him?"
She smiled a little, "I really can't tell you about him, all I can tell you is that I love him and I know he's wondering if I'm alright."
"Okay, we'll see what we can do, April."
Two weeks later, April is out of bed and in a training room. Her bruises had become nothing but a couple of faded marks on her skin. Her scars had improved drastically and she was hitting a punching bag, more like annihilating it. She was moving swiftly and with ease like she had been training for years.
Raph couldn't believe any of what he was seeing. He continued watching the video and it showed April improving more and more and becoming more deadly over mere weeks. They had taken her near dead body and injected her with mutagen and turned her into a soldier. Her body had been transformed from a feminine curvy female to pure muscle. Every move she made in the spandex workout clothes showed some sort of definition. Her hair was cut off and she was covered in tiny little scars. She wasn't even a shadow of the old April. From the second Raph let them get away, April was gone, destroyed. She had been beaten, raped, starved, and used like a little toy for their sick amusement. Raph watched the video and the self loathing and guilt began eating at him.
Before he thought twice, he chucked his sai across the room and it plunged into the wall. He buried his head in his palms and took deep breaths. As much as she did for them and all she sacrificed in order to be in a relationship with him, this is how he repaid her. He felt the walls closing in on him, he had to get out. He yanked the jump drive out so nobody else could see her like that and escaped out of the lair for some fresh air.
The city was black as he made his way to the drugstore that took the place of April's apartment building and he was surprised to see a figure sitting on ledge letting her feet dangle over, there she was. He went and leaned against the wall. They didn't say anything for the first few moments they just stared at the sky.
"You know," She began, "sometimes, I like to sit out on clear nights like this and think about how we almost had a peaceful night at the farm. Looking up at all those stars, it almost makes you forget about the bad things waiting for you when you look back down at the ground."
Raph nodded, "Never thought 'bout it, but it kind of does." He sighed and placed the jump drive on the ledge next to April, "I believe this is yours."
"Thank you." She replied not looking down at it.
"Thanks for trusting me to watch it."
"You wanted me to and you said you could handle it." She looked down at Raph, "Could you?"
He crossed his arms and stared at the ground, "I won't lie to ya, I had a hard time watchin' some stuff, but I wanted to know and I'm glad I know something now… So, they pumped you with the same stuff we got, huh?"
April nodded slowly, "Yes, it was the only thing strong enough to save me."
"You're tougher than I always thought you were. You shouldn't have lived through what you did, but you held on."
"I knew this is how you would act." She stated and he gave her a perplexed look, "You're talking to me like you don't know me anymore."
"I don't know what all that crap changed, April. I don't know how to talk 'bout any of this."
She twirled around and threw her feet over the other side of the building, "It didn't alter my personality, Raph. I'm still April up here."She pointed at her head, "I just have to compartmentalize the other stuff. It was either the mutagen or die."
"That's not what I mean, April. I don't know how to act physically toward you." He corrected.
"What?" She asked shocked.
"I used to know my limits because I knew how you'd react. You spent months being touched in ways you didn't want and I don't know what I'm allowed to do right now. I don't want to scare you or make you feel like I'm pushing something you don't want because all I want to do is figure out who you are again and I wanna touch you and be like-"
April put her hand on his mouth, "Stop." She wrapped his arms around her waist and laid her head on his plastron, "I would never be afraid of you touching me. Don't you see that thinking about you is what got me through?"
He propped his chin on her head, "I shouldn't have left you in that closet to take care of yourself. We were so drunk and I-"
"Raph, I don't want to talk about it. What happened wasn't anybody's fault. We couldn't have anticipated them finding us in the country. The exact same thing could have happened at the lair in the city."
She buried her face in his plastron and inhaled the scent she was in love with. She hadn't smelled it like this in so long. It was her favorite thing to do after a long night of making love to Raph in the apartment to roll into him and fall asleep with the scent. He bent down to kiss her neck.
"I like your hair like this."He said holding her face up in his hands, "It looks good and even though I don't know why you have to wear a suit that makes you look like the Black Widow that looks pretty damn good, too."
She giggled, "All in due time, babe."
"I still think of you as this fragile little thing that I have to protect, but now you're a badass with an agenda."
"Raph, I'll always need you, but that's because I want you. You were never a matter of convenience and I just have a different job now. Technically."
He looked into her eyes for a long while and thought about everything that had transpired and the fact that two years ago he never thought he would have the love he has with April. Even after so much time apart, she was still completely with him in every way. She pulled his head toward her, giving him the push he needed to do what he wanted. He clutched her backside and pulled her off the ground to his face and kissed her. She reciprocated without hesitation and that made him jump for joy on the inside. Before either of them knew it, one little kiss was turning into the point of no return. He turned her around to lean her against the wall of the roof. He moved his lips down her elongated neck.
Then something started beeping. April groaned and grabbed her phone and looked at Raph, "Stay really quiet." She answered the phone, "O"Neil." Raph watched her as she listened carefully to the person on the other line, and as much as he loved April no matter what, he couldn't deny she was hot as hell right now, "How many are we talking? Heavy Foot Clan activity?... Okay, I'm on my way. I'll call you when it's done." She hung up the phone and clipped it back in place then looked at Raph regretfully, "I have to go."
"Where are you going?" He asked as she made sure her disheveled hair was back in place.
She grabbed his face and kissed him one more time, "It doesn't matter because you can't be seen there." She began walking, "I mean it, Raph. You cannot follow me."
"I'm staying like a good dog." He answered sarcastically, but he was full of shit. Before he could say anything else, a cloud of smoke appeared in front of April and she was gone when it disappeared. Raph rolled his eyes, "Seriously, a ninja vanish."